Look for lackluster earnings reports to start the year

Big U.S. companies “are caught in an earnings slump that shows few signs of improving until midyear as a weak global economy and gridlock in Congress weigh on profits,” according to a Bloomberg story that includes comments from the research director at KeyCorp's private banking unit in Cleveland.The news service reports that Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker, this week “is poised to report its biggest quarterly earnings drop in 3Ĺ years,” based on analysts' estimates. In addition, General Electric, the maker of jet engines, electrical generation equipment and many other products, may post its slowest profit growth in three quarters, according to Bloomberg.“The results would contribute to a predicted 2.5 percent increase in fourth-quarter earnings for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, the second-worst showing since 2009,” Bloomberg reports. “Without a bump from financial companies that have cut jobs, the gain would be lower, at 0.4 percent.”Indeed, Key's Nick Raich tells Bloomberg that in the past six months, U.S. companies reduced growth projections for fourth-quarter earnings to 2.5% from 9%.As the number of companies reporting earnings accelerates this week, Mr. Raich predicts “most will beat their own projections for the just-ended quarter and then lower their targets for the current period,” Bloomberg notes.But Mr. Raich expects that pattern is about to change.

“The rate at which companies are cutting guidance is not as sharp as it was three, six and nine months ago,” Mr. Raich tells Bloomberg. In the next two or three quarters, a majority of companies will not only beat estimates but also maintain their guidance, he said.

This and that

The hole truth:USA Todayranks the country's best bagels, and a Cleveland favorite makes the cut.The paper breaks its list into two sections — the 10 best bagels in New York City, and the 10 best outside New York. (I can't vouch for whether this makes sense, but that's how USA Today did it.)At No. 3 on the outside-of-New York list is Bialy's Bagels, which the paper describes as “a no-frills bagel shop, serving up bagels and bagels only.”“Want it sliced? Do it at home,” USA Today says. “Want lox or cream cheese? Grab a package from the cooler. Want to pay with a credit card? Go somewhere else. Ask what's hot and eat it right out of the paper bag.”The best non-New York bagel, in USA Today's estimation, is at Kaufman's Delicatessen & Bakery in Skokie, Ill., followed by BB's Bagels in Alpharetta, Ga.When in New York, the paper says, you'll be best served by making your way to Brooklyn and visiting Bagel Hole in Park Slope.They've got the beat: Looking to break the monotony of your lunchtime routine? The Wall Street Journalhas a suggestion.

The newspaper profiles a venture called Lunch Beat which it describes as “a one-hour session in which people get together to dance when they otherwise would be running errands, checking Facebook, swallowing a sandwich or skipping the meal altogether.”The concept comes from Molly Ršnge, a project manager at Toca Boca, a Stockholm company that makes digital games for children. It “has mushroomed into a global hit, with more than 150 Lunch Beats taking place in cities ranging from Rome to Hamburg, London to Istanbul,” The Journal says.In the United States, Lunch Beats “have sprung-up in a handful of spots, including Sacramento, Cleveland, Queens, N.Y. and Colorado Springs,” according to the newspaper.In the money: One of the world's relatively newly minted billionaires, Mexican steel magnate Rufino Vigil GonzŠlez, has built some of his wealth with the help of holdings in Northeast Ohio.Forbes.com, which is fairly obsessive in its coverage of billionaires, notes that Mr. Vigil GonzŠlez's Industrias CH has become a $3.5 billion (market cap) steel production and processing company with an annual production capacity of more than 5 million tons. Thanks to his 64% stake in the steel conglomerate, Mr. Vigil GonzŠlez is now worth $2.2 billion, Forbes.com calculates, making him the latest member of Forbes' Mexican billionaires' club.The company dates to 1934. In the 2000s, Forbes.com notes, “Industrias CH kept snapping up steel makers, including two in the U.S.: in 2005, Republic Steel, a maker of special bar quality steel with plants in Canton, Lorain and Massillon, Ohio; Lackawanna, N.Y.; and Gary, Ind.; and in 2011, the assets of BCS Industries (originally Bluff City Steel), heat treatment and cold drawing plants for steel bars in Cleveland, Ohio, and Memphis, Tennessee.”You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.

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